Judgement and Mercy

AI Transcript

Amen. If you have a Bible, you can begin to make your way to the book of Revelation, Revelation, Chapter eight and nine. We're going to cover two chapters this morning. So buckle up. I read these chapters last Sunday as I was right after the service and I said, oh, it's time to buckle up. So I immediately went home and began to do some work, try to understand, engage. What is actually going on here? And as I was starting that work, I got a text from a friend.

who is now a pastor down in southern Colorado. And in the text, he sent me this picture. It's this picture of this little two inch Jesus. And he said, hey, I was standing in line at Burger King today. And the guy in front of me turned around, pulled this Jesus out of his pocket and handed it to me and said, Jesus loves you. That's what the sash says. And he said, I immediately thought about you, Mark, because 10 years ago you preached a sermon at my church.

And in it, you talked about a two inch pocket Jesus. And here it is. And I in no way want to demean or discredit the guy that turned around at Burger King and handed this guy, handed my friend this Jesus. I'm sure his heart is to just share the love of Jesus. I commend that. But in that sermon, in that sermon, I was kind of lamenting the state of modern Christianity, specifically Christology, that there is this cultural pressure to

redefine, reshape, reimagine Jesus in all the ways that we want him to be for us and not in the ways that he is portrayed in the totality of scripture. And I said in that sermon, it can be like we have a two inch pocket Jesus where we pull out this Jesus to kind of coach us along, give us what we need, whatever our current circumstances are. When we need him, we have him. But when we don't need him, we could just put him back in our pocket.

And let's say, Jesus, I don't need you in that area. In fact, I don't want you really to press in on this area of my life. And so I was kind of lamenting the two inch pocket Jesus mentality. You know, I think it comes there is this pressure. There's this pressure that we feel if you've ever tried and I hope you have if you've ever tried to share Christ with someone, there is this pressure to say, OK.

here's all the things that I want you to know about Jesus. And really to try to put forward a Jesus that really appeals to their felt needs, that really is palatable. And again, I think that comes from a good heart. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, some churches and church growth gurus were saying, how do we reach a lost culture?

They came up with what was known as become known as the Seeker Sensitive Movement and behind the movement again I think it is from the right heart like we want to reach people with Christ and they said they postulate there's seekers out there that have spiritual hunger and needs and real life needs that Jesus can speak to and so they began to reshape their worship experience reshape their churches reshape their sermons and messages to appeal

to those things. And again, I think it came from the right heart. But what you got was a bunch of messages and sermons and worship styles that really appealed to the individual like, here's how God can help you in your marriage or here's how Jesus can help you with your finances or with your health or in any number of felt need ways. And these churches, they did reach a lot of people. A lot of people grew. And by the way, that is part of what is true in the Bible.

When we align our lives with the reality that God has set in place, like a lot of those things do get better. Like relationships get better. Your finances get better. All of that is true. But the problem is, that's not the whole truth. Like there are moments, you followed, if you have followed Jesus long enough, there are moments where Jesus isn't so palatable. Life isn't so easy.

Things don't get better. And so as another friend of mine often says, Mark, what we win people with, we win them too. What we win people with, we win them too. And so if you win people with a gospel that says, here's all the ways that God can enhance your life. Here's how Jesus is kind of like a divine life coach. Then you better stick with that. You've got to stay with that because

And every week and every time you've got to begin to make it so appealing to the person that they continue to come. And then the gospel begins to get truncated. You get you get a distorted view of who Jesus is. More than that, worship becomes about the people in the pew than Christ on the throne. This is a tragedy. So.

I want to push back on that. In fact, we're in this section of scripture that we have to push back on that because chapters six through 18, maybe some of the most difficult chapters in all the Bible, especially because of the cultural air that we breathe. They're difficult to understand because it's apocalyptic literature. But what we do understand, it's difficult to embrace because of the cultural air we breathe. My favorite sermon title of all time.

comes from Jonathan Edwards in 1736. He was preaching a sermon on Revelation five and he entitled it this, and they were just so gangster with their sermon titles. I need to do better. But here's what he entitled his sermon from Revelation five. The admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Christ Jesus. That's quite a mouthful, right? Let me say it slower. The admirable conjunction.

of diverse excellencies in Christ Jesus. And what he was saying from Revelation five is one of the glories of Christ is that in the same divine person he is both lion of Judah and lamb of God who takes away the sins. And he goes throughout the rest of the scripture and he shows Jesus is the holy one, the righteous one, the one who is worthy of all glory and the one who humbles himself. This is diverse excellencies. Jesus is

all truth and he is mercy, he is justice and he is grace and it is the full and complete picture of these diverse excellencies that make him even more praiseworthy. It's what we need. We need to see Jesus in all of his glory, even the parts that are hard for us to swallow. So for example, in the Gospel of Luke, we recently studied Luke.

There is a line that Jesus says that I can almost guarantee no one gets tattooed. Like you're not going to see this verse on the bottom of your in and out cup. Sorry Rick. But in Luke chapter 12, Jesus says, came to cast fire on the earth and wood that were already kindled. Hello? No one's got that tattooed? This is about the judgment of Jesus. I came to bring judgment. I don't like that pocket Jesus.

No, no, we like Luke chapter 19 for the son of man came to seek and save the lost. But both are true. He is both the judge and savior. He is righteous in his wrath and gracious in his mercy. The admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Christ Jesus. Now, I learned a while ago that God does not need me.

God does not need you to be his defense attorney. The line of Judah does not need to be tamed. The line of Judah is the line of Judah whether we try to tame him or not. He is God on the throne. And what God has called us to in this time and in this place is to be a faithful witness. Here's who God is to the world.

Revelation 6 through 18 as I said are difficult to understand they're difficult to embrace but they are for our good that they're part of God's Word that they show us that God cares about sin and because God is love he has wrath because God is love he has wrath and I've said this before but let me just explain like you you have this too

So good parents, good fathers, good mothers, you love your children and so you give them commands and instructions and boundaries for their flourishing because it's out of your love. And you discipline when they go out of that because you love them. And if someone was to mistreat, take advantage, abuse or even try to kill your child, then the righteous wrath would rise up in your heart and soul.

defend them because it's out of your goodness and your love now if God is infinite in his goodness and infinite in his love then his wrath is also good and right this is what we're gonna see in the next several several chapters now one of the problems with with the book of Revelation is it of all the books of the Bible it's very easy to miss the forest for the trees

What I mean by that is you can start to nail down on specific verses and be like, well, what does this mean? What is that? That's really bizarre and start to get lost in the weeds, right? Again, I think this is one of the reasons why Calvin never wrote a commentary on Revelation, because when you write commentaries, that's what you do. You commentate on every verse, but it's easier to actually preach Revelations than commentate, because we can go...

at a 30,000 foot view and explain and understand what is actually happening here. So there's two lenses that you can come to this section or the whole book of Revelation. One is a futuristic lens. This is the typical lens that most American Christians come to the book of Revelation. Speculate, how is this thing going to play out in the end? What does this verse mean? What could it possibly, is it talking about Apache or?

Apache helicopters in this chapter. Is that what's going on here? We could speculate like that. And by the way, we're in the chapter where the Apache helicopters are speculated upon. Just a heads up for you on that one. Or again, as we've said throughout this book, this book cannot mean to us what it did not mean to the first readers. There's another lens and when you see it through the other lens, it becomes so obvious. The other lens is you have the Book of Revelation in one hand, you have the

Old Testament in the other. And when you see clear echoes from the Old Testament into the book of Revelation, you say, I see what's going on. What was going on then? What did that teach us about? Teach God's people about God then that is applicable in this case, 92 A.D. or 2025 Parker, Colorado. And when you come to chapters eight and nine,

What immediately would have jumped off the page was these are echoes of two books, primarily the book of Exodus and then secondarily the prophet Joel. When you start to understand, okay, well, what was happening in Exodus? What was happening in Joel? What does that teach us about God there that is true today? You start to say, I see what's happening in this book.

Did you know Revelation actually does not give us any new doctrine or actual revelation about the fangs of God? I love how Eugene Peterson puts it in his book on Revelation. says this, do not read the Revelation to get additional information about the life of faith in Christ. I've read it all before. Everything in the Revelation can be found in the previous 65 books of the Bible.

The revelation adds nothing of substance to what we already know. The truth of the gospel is already complete, revealed in Jesus Christ. There is nothing new to say on the subject, but there is a new way to say it. I read the revelation not to get more information, but to revive my imagination. This apocalyptic literature sets our minds on fire with the truth of God in ways that epistles or even gospels

Do not. We're going to see that in this passage as well. Again there's going to be an echo from Exodus. So if you remember the Exodus God had spared his people from famine and they had come down to Egypt and they had lived in prosperity for a while but eventually the kings the pharaohs they changed and as Israel grew that there would there became a animosity towards the Israelites and they were enslaved.

And in their slavery, they felt just the brokenness of this world. They begin to cry out to God. at the end of chapter two, verse 23 says this, during those many days, the king of Egypt died and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God and God heard their groaning.

And God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God, I love this last verse, God saw the people of Israel and God knew. And God knew. Keep that in mind as we turn to Revelation 8. But also later in Exodus, remember there's the 10 plagues. I'll put them on the screen here. These plagues are God's judgment on

the Egyptians. We had water followed by frogs and gnats and flies and pestilence and boils and hail and locusts and darkness and death of the firstborn. Again, keep these in mind as we look at Revelation 8 and 9. But also keep in mind what was happening in Egypt during these things and what was the purpose of these judgments. Part of the purpose was to call Pharaoh

call the Egyptians to repentance. Right at the end of each one that they it was like are you going to repent and and they kind of half-heartedly did sometimes but then their heart was hardened and the next one came and their heart was hardened. What was God teaching us in Exodus in Exodus that is true in the first century. Well in Egypt it was the most powerful army in the world the most powerful nation in the world and it had set its oppression on the people of God.

Well, what's happening in the first century? The most powerful empire that the world has known, the Roman Empire, has set its oppression on the people of God. So there's an echo. And what did Exodus teach us? God hates sin. He hates all sin. God hears the prayers and the cries of his people. You can go on and on and see the echo between Revelation and Exodus. So with that,

Let's turn our attention to Exodus chapter eight or Revelation. chapter eight. We've had seven seals. We're to have seven trumpets. We'll have seven bowls. I'll put those up on it. I break these up because it's interesting because again, this does not happen in chronological order, but recursive, repetitive. They're cyclical.

They're not telling what's happening. Then this happens, this happens, this happens. But they're telling the whole story of the church age from the death, burial and resurrection of Christ until he comes again. We see this in each one of the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls are different judgments from God and they break up in this way. All of them. There's four that go together and then there's a pause. Then two that are totally unique and then a pause and then a

at the end comes Christ returns. So we get to the end three times and we start over. We start over. But they're telling the same story but from a different perspective. We saw in chapter six to eight that the seven seals tell the perspective from the church. Here's what's affecting the church. Here's explaining the church's experience in the last 2000 years. But now we're in the seven trumpets and that's going to tell the perspective from

the unbelieving world from what Revelation is going to say, the dwellers of the earth, from those that are in rebellion to God, His rule, and His reign. This was just helpful for me to see, because normally I read through Revelation and I'm like, that was weird, that was weird, that was weird. But to see there's actually a pattern, a rhythm to each one of these three. Okay, so let's jump in to chapter eight.

said when the lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer. And he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne. And the smoke of the incense

with the prayers of the saints rose before God from the hand of the angel. Did you hear the echo from Exodus chapter 2? The people were oppressed. They cry out to God and it rose to the throne room of God. This is significant. God saw them then and in the first century and now and

What we see immediately is that the prayers of God's people are significant, far more significant than you could think or imagine. Right. So far in the visions of the throne room of God, we've seen this continuous loud like thunder worship of God. Holy, holy, holy. But now the prayers are there and there is silence. God is hearing.

prayers. We see this from the sixth seal. The martyrs under the altar are praying. They're calling out, Lord, how long until you avenge us? How long before your righteous wrath comes to the earth? And now in response to their prayers, the seven trumpets are about to be blown. Look at verse five. says, then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth.

And there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. The judgment of God is falling on the earth.

Now we see the seven trumpets, verse six. Now the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to blow them. Again, they're in groups of four and then two and then one. says the first angel blew his trumpet and there followed hail and fire mixed with blood, think Exodus. And these were thrown upon the earth and a third of the earth was burned up and a third of the trees were burned up and all green grass was burned up.

Remember in Revelation the numbers are symbolic. So we should ask the question why a third a third a third a third. We'll come back to that. The second angel blew his trumpet and something like a great mountain burning with fire was thrown into the sea and a third of the sea became blood. Think of the River Nile turning to blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died and a third of the ships were destroyed.

Verse 10, the third angel blew his trumpet and a great star fell from heaven blazing like a torch and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood and many people died from the water because it had been made bitter. The fourth angel blew his trumpet and the third of the sun was struck. That's the ninth plague in Exodus and the third of the moon and a third of the stars.

so that a third of their light might be darkened and a third of the day might be kept from shining. And likewise, a third of the night. This is a picture of creation gone berserk. It is what we see. We see it today. We've seen it for 2000 years when nature is broken itself. Romans chapter eight says all of nature itself, the creation itself is groaning.

redemption but there is brokenness in the world there are earthquakes that happen there are there are floods there are famines there are all these things and in the brokenness of the world that there should be a crying out to God it should be a wake-up call to the world like things are not right how are things going to be put right again it's an explanation of creation gone wild

Verse 13, then I looked and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead. Whoa, whoa, whoa. To those who dwell on the earth. Again, unbelievers on the earth. At the blast of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow. So now we come to the fifth angel, the fifth with the fifth trumpet. And just a heads up, this is where we're going to see the Apache helicopters. Not really.

I promise you these are not Apache helicopters, but we'll get to that in a second. This is in the fifth angel blew his trumpet and they saw a star falling from heaven to earth. And he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit. Again, this should stir your imagination. And from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace.

and the sun and the air were darkened and with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth. Again, the prophet Joel or Exodus. These locusts come up, but they're not ordinary locusts. Look at what it says. And they were given power, like the power of scorpions on the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree.

Clearly these aren't locusts because that's what locusts do. They eat all the grass and harm the plants and eat the trees but not these locusts. In fact they're not locusts at all. We'll see in a minute. It says but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. So they torment but they don't torment God's people. Remember we saw that last week. We are sealed. We are saved and we are secure forever. This is

from the perspective of the unbelievers. It says, were allowed to torment them for five months. Again, we'll come back to that. But not to kill them. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days, people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. This is the peril of the unbeliever. Life can be miserable.

but they're afraid, terrified of death. They want death, but they don't want death. Verse seven then begins to explain these locusts. Again, this is where some are like, well, that must be Apache helicopters. No, it's actually a picture of the demonic world. And it's intentionally a ghastly, gruesome, and horrific image of demonic forces in this world.

So in appearance, the locusts were like, he's reaching for words, it's simile. And what he describes is far more horrific than anything Stephen King has ever described. The locusts were like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold. Their faces were like human faces. Their hair like women's hair. And their teeth like lion's teeth. They had

breastplates like iron and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails and stings like scorpions and their power to hurt people for five months in their tails. They have a king over them, the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abedon and in Greek he is called Apollyon.

This is probably Satan, this demonic whore that has been released out into the world to afflict unbelievers. But remember what Eugene Peterson said, revelation doesn't tell us anything new. What's being described here, it's what Paul described in Ephesians. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers, the principalities, the dark forces.

in this world and in this apocalyptic vision you're like my gosh this is terrifying that there is a real spiritual battle raging all around us with horrific beings seeking to destroy, distort, and blind those who do not know Christ. When you start to feel the weight of that you start to have a little hopefully a little bit of compassion with those that seem like they're in total rebellion to God.

And you start to see there is a demonic presence behind that. And so you're reminded our struggle is not against them, but against these dark forces. They're afflicting the unbelievers. Verse 12 says, the first woe has passed. Behold, two woes are still to come. Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet. And I'll let you on your own time read that, but it's this picture of this 200 million

warrior army coming across the far reaches of the Roman Empire at that time, the Euphrates River. Rome was obsessive about their control and power and dominance and they were always trying to expand it more, but they always had this deep fear in the hearts that there was some unknown army just outside their border ready to roll in and the Revelation says, oh, it's an army of 200,000 strong. It's a demonic army.

that is going to roll into Babylon, roll into Rome. It's a horrific, scary picture here. But let's get back to the numbers. One third, five months. What's going on there? Just like in Exodus with the plagues, they were limited in scope and in time. It does affect the whole world, but not all of the world, a third of it.

These judgments are mixed with mercy. The idea is that you should see the brokenness of the world. You should see the brokenness of our heart. You should feel the demonic oppression and that should press you on to turn to repent and to come to God to find mercy in God. That's the hope. But that's what makes Revelation 9 verses 20 and 21 some of the saddest verses in the Bible. It says the rest of mankind

who were not killed by these plagues did not repent. They did not repent.

They did not repent of their works of their hands, nor give up worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood which cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. They had their hearts.

They persisted like Pharaoh. The vast majority persist in the rebellion. They don't see the judgments for what they are. An opportunity to turn to God. They did not repent. Now John isn't saying that no one ever repents. There are some that repent but the vast majority don't. Did you know in Exodus chapter 12 as the people are leaving Egypt it also tells us that

There were some Egyptians that went with them. Some Egyptians saw the plagues and they're like, Ra is not God. Whoever is the living God of the Israelites, that is God. And they went out with the Israelites. The vast majority did not. This is true of our world, right? The vast majority will not repent, but some will. Some will. Which leads us to the question. Revelation 8 and 9. How should we

as believers respond to these chapters. Well, what is this calling us to in this time in this place? think three things. One, I think it's obvious. We are called to pray. We should respond with prayer. John is showing us the significance of prayer, that it rises before God in his throne room. It silences heaven and he hears, he sees

And he responds that if we took to heart the vision of prayer from Revelation, we would be a praying church. It would not be an add on to our spiritual life. It would be our life. It would be our breath. It would be what we would do all the time. Lord, you hear our prayers, you see, you respond, you react to how we pray and then let us be a praying church. We should pray. Number two.

Because God hates sin and has wrath for all rebellion. We should repent. We should regularly repent. See the difference between those that are sealed and the dwellers of the earth isn't that we we are we don't sin and they're they just sin. No the difference between a believer and unbeliever is a believer has the Holy Spirit is constantly convicted of sin and constantly turning away.

from sin and turning to God. This is what it looks like to be a believer to repent to take sin seriously. God knows your sins your sins omission and commission. He knows your heart. He knows the rebellion. He knows the wickedness. If any of us had the thoughts of our last week played on the screen we would all be embarrassed. God sees it all and God's people repent continually. This is what

Martin Luther said in his 95 Thesis, 508 years ago this month, when he nailed the 95 Thesis on the church doors at Wittenberg, number one he said this, when our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, Matthew 4.17, he willed that the entire life of believers be one of continual repentance. These chapters and the ones to come remind us that God's

people repent. We take sin seriously because God takes sin seriously. And then finally we'll see this more next week. But these chapters remind us that this is the time and this is the place that God has called us and placed us to be on mission in the world. So we warn the world in rebellion to repent that that that there is a way to life and hope. We don't take up a sword.

to defeat our enemies. When we don't go online to try to defeat everyone on X who doesn't agree with us theologically, because that works so awesome. No, we don't pick up a sword. We point a finger to the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We alone have a message for the world. There is hope, there is forgiveness, there is a path to life.

In our culture, in our day, and even in our own church, we're asking this question, are we on the verge of revival? What evidences of grace do we see that could be a national revival or a churchwide revival? Now, to be clear, there is revival happening in many places throughout the world. Brazil is blowing up with the gospel. Many are getting saved every single day. The fastest growing church in the world right now is in

one of the most oppressed countries in the world in Iran. Iranians are coming in droves to know Jesus as Lord and Savior. We praise God for that. Sub-Sahara Africa is coming to know Jesus as Lord and Savior like no other place. But our question as Americans in this time and this place, and hopefully our prayer is, Lord, would you bring revival here? Would you stir here and somewhere like, well, I see this and this and this. But here's the thing. At least

Historically, how does revival happen? It happens on the twin rails of prayer and repentance in the local church. Show me a church where there is a growing culture of prayer who understands that prayer silences heaven and leans into it. Then I'll show you a church that God is on the move. Show me a church where there is a culture of confession.

and repentance among one another. And I'll show you a church where God is on the move. But you show me a church where there is prayer and repentance. Buckle up. May God do that in our day. Amen. Let me pray for us.